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Letters: Oil train safety and energy exports

Oil Trains Safety

A warning placard on a tank car carrying crude oil is seen on a train idled on the tracks near a crude loading terminal in Trenton, N.D. U.S. officials, meeting in Washington on Jan. 16, say companies need to come up with safer ways to transport oil on the nation's rail lines following some explosive accidents as crude trains proliferate across North America.
(Matthew Brown/Associated Press/2013)

It states that "U.S. refineries are shipping record amounts of gasoline and diesel abroad" and that "they can buy oil at artificially low prices and then export the gasoline and diesel abroad at a markup." Big profits.

The same is true for coal and LNG export proposals. The environment and the people get all the risks, and private energy corporations get all the profits.

When do "We the People" catch a break at the pump or get some protection from honest permitting processes? The Keystone Pipeline will deliver crude for export refining for big profits. And the domestic energy boom will play out in 20 years. Where is long-term energy export planning?

It's the same old story. Money talks in Congress and statehouses. Guess who really pays.

Don B. Hennig

Gales Creek

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The article about the movement of crude oil from the shale oil fields of North Dakota through Washington and Oregon is excellent and is a reminder of the need for journalists to be vigilant and expose issues that affect us all.

It’s been very disturbing to read of the cavalier attitude of the railroad companies regarding the safe transport of oil.

The three areas I’m most concerned about are:

• The improper containers for moving the oil (too thin-skinned)

• The secrecy of the railroad companies in general regarding the oil trains

• The laws that place the railroad companies above river-going transportation systems, such as barges and tankers in adhering to safety regulations

It’s not enough to say the odds are slim of an accident — not when the oil trains are chugging through our priceless Columbia River Gorge and into the heart of our city.

Our leaders need to take the lead here. Put some laws on the books to safeguard us all — and fund the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality appropriately to monitor them.

We don’t want to join Quebec or Alabama as sites of oil train explosions.

Mary D. Edwards

Northwest Portland

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The front-page story about the danger inherent in transporting oil by trains through communities and neighborhoods that are not prepared to handle a possible catastrophic fire or hazardous accidental oil spill on the Columbia River or its tributaries is a huge problem with regional dimensions ("Oil-train regulators get crude awakening," Jan 12.) We need a regional solution.

While we have been debating and studying coal and liquefied natural gas exports, the oil trains have been running and they will continue to do so. Isn’t it time for the powerful congressional delegations from Washington and Oregon to demand federal regulatory review and an environmental impact statement at the very least?

As the news story points out, we cannot rely on promises from the railways for help and assistance unless they are required to do so and we have someone looking over their shoulders.

Let us hope that Sens. Ron Wyden, Jeff Merkley, Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray, as well as Reps. Earl Blumenauer, Suzanne Bonamici and Jaime Herrera Beutler are on top of this issue.

Blaine Ackley

Hillsboro

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The Oregonian editorial board mischaracterizes the nature of the risks to both humans and the environment of fracking and oil trains carrying North Dakota crude through our towns and along our rivers ("Containing the risks of oil trains," Jan 15).

The editorial says fracking is "good if you believe, as we do, that America's energy security is bolstered," but what damage is being done to America's aquifers from the proprietary chemical brew that fracking pumps into the ground? Fracking is a classic case of putting the cart before the horse, where chemicals are put to use with little understanding of or concern for the consequences.

And to say that "nobody along water or situated inland is prepared for a full-on explosion" ignores reality by suggesting that damage from an oil train explosion can be mitigated with preparedness. No degree of preparation can diminish the damage, destruction and loss of life these bombs-on-rails can wreak on vulnerable communities.

Neither oil company profits nor "energy security" justify the inevitable repeat of a Lac-Megantic disaster that these oil trains could cause. The loophole that allows this Russian roulette to continue should be closed with emergency federal legislation.